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I was at this talk (given at CodeMash a few days ago). It spurred a lot of discussion/opposition over the fact that it revolves so heavily around only hiring pa
by twymer 16y ago
I was at this talk (given at CodeMash a few days ago). It spurred a lot of discussion/opposition over the fact that it revolves so heavily around only hiring passionate, rock star quality developers that care about the product you're developing.
Small companies and startups often have a product that you can recruit people who are passionate enough about the idea that stuff like this can work out. The problem for discussion is more based on which (if any) of these ideas can be applied to a large corporation where the developers are working on insurance or financial software etc.
Some things that are lost for those only reading slides:
- His main reasons behind this "DDD" policy is that it's the open source model. Developers work on things they care about, when they feel like working and then every hour they spend "working" is a valuable hour of work. Any policy that forces or even simply guilts people into a set schedule or number of hours causes unproductive time and a loss of developer happiness/autonomy.
- He strongly advocates removing money as a motivator. At github apparently every employee makes the same salary.
- The "no vacations" comment comes from him not believing you should track vacations. Employees should but trusted and able to take the time off they deem appropriate.
- At github, the Google "20% policy" is taken to an extreme. People can work on whatever they want on "company time".
- shade 16y agoMan, I was at CodeMash, but missed that keynote since I had to run an errand over lunch (kinda needed new hearing aid batteries). I'm kinda bummed that I missed it given the volume of discussion that it generated. Did you happen to hit Joe Nuxoll's user experience session on Friday? That was probably the high point of the conference for me -- tons of useful info.
- twymer 16y agoYeah, the room was packed when I got there.. sat in the front on the floor for it. Definitely the most useful of everything I saw there.
- tbrownaw 16y ago> His main reasons behind this "DDD" policy is that it's the open source model. Developers work on things they care about, when they feel like working and then every hour they spend "working" is a valuable hour of work. Does this actually apply to employer-sponsored OSS work?
- twymer 16y agoI meant the model that OSS software gets developed in. That people work on the feature or project they love/want to see succeed/etc rather than what a manager told them to focus on.
- tbrownaw 16y agoIt is rarely the case that they'd be paid (by someone outside the project) to work on a particular feature? Companies that sponsor OSS development basically just say "here's a paycheck, go have fun"?
- whatusername 16y agoI'd be curipous to see how the "No vacations" rule plays out.. In Australia most employees would deem 4 weeks vacation as appropriate. In France it's probably higher. In the US -- maybe it's 2 or 3 weeks.
- kneath 16y agoStop tracking what days people are working & what days they aren't and you'll realize you've missed the whole point of "no vacations" We don't have vacations because we judge people by what they do — not how often they're working.
- fleitz 16y agoAs a Dev who worked on finance industry apps, you can get Dev buyin. However, if your motivating them based on selling the company then you should do that otherwise your devs will leave in droves. The main thing you need to show devs is that people are using their code. Nothing is more depressing for a Dev than code that doesn't ship, followed only by code that people don't use.
- michaelbuckbee 16y agoI've sometimes told people that I have "shipness syndrome", I start to feel uneasy the longer my code goes undeployed and used.